


In Happiness You'll Die

by TiRaven (Estirose)



Category: Zero: Shisei no Koe | Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/TiRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reika died slightly differently, and the Manor of Sleep is a place of joy... at least until the dreamers die of the dream. Now, Miku and Yuu, with some help from Kei, must find a way to break Reika's curse before their loved ones succumb to the curse and leave them alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this for the BCL forum's fanfic/fanart contest, but it's not going to be done in time, so I submitted other stuff. It's how even happiness can be used as a lure to cause pain and suffering.

Miku opened the doors in her dream. When she arrived in the dream place, it always looked like an old, big house that she'd never seen in real life; when she went inside, however, the entryway of Himuro Mansion beckoned. Himuro Mansion would have never been enticing in real life, and she still dreaded it in her dreams, but she'd done the best to make this dream version a little more like home.

"He's coming," a voice said behind her as she surveyed the place. She swung around, and Reika gazed at her with her usual sad look. The shrine maiden was half-naked, covered in blue tattoos that covered her body and face, and Miku thought she would have been truly terrifying had she not been so sad.

"Who's coming?" she asked, but Reika disappeared instead of answering.

Reika often did that. While she counted the ghost as a strange friend, and had for most of the two years that she'd been in the place off and on in her daydreams, she knew that Reika often teleported about, making sure her guests were all right. Miku, it seemed, required less care than most. While she would have preferred to share some of her research with Reika, she understood. Reika was doing her best to make sure nobody died from her curse.

She glanced towards the mask door. If Mafuyu was coming, he'd come that way, but it was so rare to actually talk to him that she really didn't expect it. Beyond that door was the room with the water and the boards, followed by Kirie's confinement room, followed by the cave with the hellgate. Except the hellgate was closed, and Kirie wasn't there.

No, Kirie was at the real hellgate, and so was Mafuyu, and it was rare that Mafuyu felt it was safe enough to leave Kirie for a little while. Miku got the sense that Kirie purposefully made him go, just so that they'd have a little something different to talk about.

Even if that something was another hellgate filtering through a run-down mansion full of strangely happy dreams.

The door to the rope hallway opened, and Yuu stepped forward. He was obviously trying to converse with someone that Miku couldn't see, by virtue of being alive. Some ghosts were that way, invisible to the living but plainly visible to the dead.

"Thank you," Yuu said, bowing a little at the invisible being. Stepping around the hole in the floor, which Miku had made into a garden, he smiled at Miku, stepping forward to give her a hug.

"What did the ghost look like?" Miku asked. The absurdity had struck her several times when asking a ghost that she could see about a ghost she couldn't see, even with her sixth sense.

"It's the woman with the broken neck. I've been talking to some of the incidental ghosts and seeing if I can get any clues." 

Miku shuddered a little at the ghost that she'd encountered so often at Himuro. But there was nothing to be done, and it wasn't like the ghost could hurt her anyway. Nobody hurt in here, except for Reika.

The more people died in the place, never woke up from the deceptively pleasant dreams, the more Reika lost control of the tattoos on her body, and the more evil could come through. It was as simple as that.

"How many have you found?"

"Not many." He was frowning a bit. "Most people don't last long enough to generate incidental ghosts. I've been talking to the little kids in Mio's dream."

"Chitose, Hayaka, Taizo, and Yukio." Yuu had taken her to Mio's dream once. She couldn't see them, but Yuu had told her that Chitose was the girl whose crying she heard, Hayaka and Taizo were the ones arguing about playing tag, and even though she couldn't see Yukio, he was there. 

She could see Mio and her sister Mayu. They dressed differently enough that she could tell them apart, and they seemed happy. Miku had made the effort to talk to Kei, Mio's uncle, just enough to know that Mio was getting worse and wasn't awake much. She seemed content to be with Mayu, Mayu who didn't limp in Mio's dream, Mayu who could keep up and play with Mio the way that Mio had apparently waited to play with her for a long time.

Mio, who was probably headed for the Sea of the Dead soon, like every other person who succumbed to the curse. Though if Yuu was right, maybe she'd return, if briefly, when Kei was drawn in. If he felt as guilty as she did, as Rei did, she'd be seeing him soon.

That was what brought people to the dream mansion. The chance to be with their loved ones, staying there until they, too, gave up.

Rei was in danger of doing that too, unless Miku and Yuu could break the curse. And Miku desperately wanted to. She'd lost her brother to a ghost; she wasn't going to lose Rei to a ghost too.

Even if that ghost was Yuu.


	2. Chapter 2

She sighed. "Here's what I have." She was good at sending information from the real world to Reika's dream manor. She just had to memorize it in the real world, and it showed up as documents in the mansion. Kei had helped her research it, though he was no folklorist and she knew far more than he did about what was going on.

As far as experts on the Manor went, she was probably the biggest expert of them all, having spent so many hours there. Most of it had been talking to Reika when Reika could spare the time or was lonely. It was Reika who had suggested that Miku "improve" the Himuro Mansion area, just so that she had something to look at when she came in. Reika wasn't overly worried about Miku becoming addicted to the dream world, and neither was Miku.

Once Yuu had arrived there - and she was totally not surprised when he did, given Rei's state of mind - she'd asked him to help her research. She knew very well what the mansion did to living people that weren't partly immune. He'd agreed, taking the time to interview people as he could and interview Reika and read books when he couldn't. 

She desperately needed him to stay there, just because he could do the research while she was busy convincing Rei to stay with the world of the living. She'd spent the last two years trying to figure a way to end Reika's curse, but she wasn't a trained folklorist like Yuu or even Mafuyu. Not that Mafuyu was really a folklorist himself, but he'd spent time with Yuu and at least knew the methodology.

"Reika told me that there had been a few others like you," Yuu said conversationally, skimming over her research. "Over the centuries."

"I know. She told me about Kozue." She couldn't imagine what it was like to essentially grow up partially immune to the Manor's influence, about being able to see one's loved ones yet not feeling guilty about their deaths. If Mafuyu hadn't had his duties, she'd have succumbed before, but she'd been fortunate. Her brother's duty to Kirie was keeping her safe.

There was a picture of Kozue as an old woman somewhere in the mansion, one that Reika had managed to draw or convince someone to make for her. So that she wouldn't lose Kozue.

Miku wondered if someday Reika would have a picture made of her, too. So that she remembered Miku as surely as she remembered Kozue. That was, if Miku didn't figure out a way to break the curse so that Reika could live in peace instead of sorrow.

"She also told me that another guest - Yoshino Takigawa - went to the Sea of the Dead."

Taking a deep breath, Miku tried not to sob. She'd like Yoshino Takigawa, hearing about her life. But the woman had been spending so long that she wasn't surprised.

Yuu caught her in a brief hug. "Maybe if Mafuyu comes next time," he said, "We can all work on this together."

"I hope so." Her brother had good insights, though not as good as hers. She knew this place better, could tell if things had changed, but Yuu and Mafuyu had the academic background that she didn't.

"And in the meantime, I'll do more research," Yuu said. "I want to talk to Kiriko."

"If you can get her to talk." She'd met Kiriko a few times, because the woman had such an irregular sleeping schedule. Except for one time where she dared crawl her way under the house - something she hoped never to do again - she mostly managed to say hi through grills and grates, and one time the well in the grave courtyard. 

Kiriko had been there about a year, if Miku guessed right. She hadn't succumbed to the curse because she was too afraid to be with her family, even when they showed up and tried to coax her out. Her family wanted her to come with them, even if it meant not existing. The woman had so far resisted, and even whispered her pain to Miku when Miku had crawled under.

She knew she was welcome in Kiriko's underground crawl space, but she didn't want to impose on the other woman. Especially given how skittish Kiriko could be.

"I've had some success." He shrugged. "She's given me some documents that I think can help uncover what happened. She won't get near me, of course, but we've arranged things."

Of course. Everybody liked Yuu. It was too bad that Rei had found him first; Miku wished she'd been the one to find the quiet folklorist.

But that was the past, and she had to plan for the future, and help Yuu before everything fell to pieces.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'll go and talk to her first, so that she knows you're not scary." It had been a while before Kiriko felt comfortable talking to her, and apparently she had a hard time dealing with Yuu, who was as gentle as they came.

"I appreciate it. I know she's scared of me for some reason, but without being able to talk to her, I'll never know why." 

"I'll find out." Technically, she could stay in there as long as she wanted, but she always set an alarm so that her afternoon naps didn't interfere with much of anything. Rei was so depressed that she hardly noticed. "Or at least ask nicely."

"Thank you." Yuu smiled at her. "Whatever you can do will help."

"The faster we can get Rei out of this...." Of course, she couldn't stop Rei from going into the dream, but she could at least avoid interfering with her time with Yuu. "Okay, I'm going - do you see any ghosts in here?" Just because she couldn't see them didn't mean that she wanted to run into them.

"No, your incidental ghosts seem to be calm for the moment. Go, I'll wait for Rei to come."

She nodded, quietly pleased that none of the Himuro ghosts were around. Even if she couldn't see them, knowing they were there made her shiver. "I'll be back," she said, getting up.

"Have a safe trip." Yuu lifted his hand in a small wave, but she barely noticed it as she mentally traced a path to where she needed to go. If she went through the rope hallway, then to the door that had led to the fireplace room in Himuro, she'd find herself in the original Kuze shrine hallway. Or at least Reika's approximation of it, since it had all been part of a dream.

The path led her down a hall, and then she was near a grate. "Kiriko? Are you there?"

"I tried not to sleep, I really did...." the woman whispered, and Miku had to practically lie on the floor to see and hear her. "Why won't they leave me alone? I don't deserve to be with them."

"Because that's the way the curse works. You'll come here and you'll eventually die." Kiriko was one of the few that she'd talked to about the curse, and the frightened woman had actually taken that better than some had. Miku suspected that it was because if she knew it was a curse, she could fight it, instead of succumbing to being with her family.

There was sobbing from the grate. "I'm so afraid to sleep now."

"I know." She couldn't help herself, not that much, but she could help Kiriko and Reika, along with Rei and everybody else affected by the curse.

"Is there any way I could help?" Kiriko asked. "I'm afraid to leave my house much, but it's better than being here. My family... they died, and they want me to come with them."

Miku was used to this. It was how Kiriko survived, by repeating things as if in a mantra. "It's not your fault. But you shouldn't go with them anyway." She sighed. "Yuu Aso, who you've met, wants to talk to you about anything you know."

Kiriko sobbed. "He's dead, Miku! I can't trust anybody who's dead. Except for Reika."

"Yuu and I want to end the curse. He's the one with the training. I just... I just am really good at surviving."

Or was she? She wasn't sure, having wondered more than once if she should have died with Mafuyu, but he couldn't go to the Sea of the Dead, so she was safe.

"I... I'll try. But I can't promise anything. I'll tell Reika to tell him to come to one of the places where I'm safer."

"I know you'll do what you need to do. And...." She conjured a piece of paper from nowhere, a physical manifestation of memorized information. "The phone number for the house that I live in. The other lady that lives there is also suffering from the curse, but it'll make her happy to know that I have some friends left."

Not that this would help her curse, of course. It might even make her go faster. But maybe she would feel better about things if Miku herself seemed to be happy. 

Miku tried to be happy for Rei, but she knew that she wanted to die, too. But she wouldn't do it with the curse. She wouldn't cause Reika more pain.

There was an alarm ringing in her head, and the mansion faded.


	4. Chapter 4

Miku walked down the stairs, heading towards the kitchen. Rei looked up as she crossed the living room. She was examining her camera equipment, and Miku vaguely recalled that she was supposed to go out on an assignment soon. One of the things that Yuu had managed to do was convince Rei to keep taking pictures, in hopes of delaying the curse's effect on her.

"Good afternoon, Rei," she said, greeting her friend and sometime employer.

"Oh, good afternoon, Miku. Did you have a nice nap?" Rei asked. She seemed slightly distracted.

"Yes." Miku checked the calendar. "I know that we've got a shoot tomorrow, so I just wanted some extra rest."

That brought a vague smile to Rei's face, and she finally put the camera down. "I feel like I could sleep forever."

"I sometimes wanted to do that, too." Miku stuck the dishes from lunch into the dishwasher, thinking of what she could make for supper. "But I think it's good to wake up sometimes?"

"I guess so." Rei stared at the camera equipment as if it could connect her somehow to Yuu. But her camera was an ordinary camera, not a Camera Obscura like the one that Miku's family had once owned, and couldn't do that. "Yuu keeps telling me that too, as if he knows it's a dream." She laughed a little, but it was a laugh that Miku didn't very much like. It was a fragile laugh, one that would fall apart if you shook it too hard.

"I think it's because you've heard me say it," Miku said. "I... I think it's good advice, that's all."

It was good advice even if there wasn't a curse lurking about. Miku herself might have been technically cursed, but she'd never die from too much happiness. She just returned to the manor pretty much every time she slept. She could count on her fingers the number of times she'd dreamed about something other than the manor since she'd escaped Himuro Mansion.

"I suppose you're right." The laugh was back. "What do you know about where we're going?"

Miku considered it a good thing that she'd started doing research for Rei before Yuu had died. In a way, it was because she was a studious person by nature, but also because she wanted Yuu to be proud. "I have a folder. I'll get it for you when I'm done here."

"A sweet shop, right? I'm not sure I'm up to it, but Yuu says I can do it." 

"Yuu was always good at that," Miku said carefully. "Yes, it's the Tachibana Sweet Shop. The magazine you're shooting for wants pictures of the restaurant interior, exterior, and staff. It's because they're doing a feature on some of the best restaurants in the area."

Not that it mattered. Miku would gladly handle all the camera equipment in the world for Rei, and Rei would take the pictures, and maybe Rei would think of something other than how she was going to see Yuu again that night.

Miku wondered if Yuu was having any luck getting in touch with Kiriko, or if he was waiting for her to communicate through Reika. It could take a while, knowing Kiriko. Kiriko had been serious when she said that she didn't trust the dead.

"Interior, exterior, and staff." Rei stared at the curtains thoughtfully. "Give me what you have and I'll be ready."

There was a moment in there that sounded like the Rei that Miku had known before the accident. Before Yuu had turned up in the Manor and Miku had explained the whole thing to him during a short afternoon nap. That one had been purely accidental, but when she'd realized that she could get him to help that way, she'd just started taking her naps in the afternoon. Reika kept her company sometimes when Yuu and Mafuyu were busy, and she roamed the mansion when Reika couldn't be with her.

She was pretty sure that she'd have to go locate Reika's physical body and send it across the water, but she wasn't sure how she'd do that. She wasn't even sure where the physical Manor was, though Yuu was working on that. Kei was able to access maps where she wasn't, and so she was relying on both of them to help her find the place.

And what would happen to the Hellgate? She wasn't sure. All that she knew was that she couldn't let either Rei or Kei's niece Mio die. It probably needed a guardian, and she didn't want to sacrifice anybody else. What had happened to Kirie and Reika was too fresh in her mind.

Putting the final dish in the dishwasher, she headed upstairs. Rei didn't comment, having presumed that she was getting the file. Which she was. 

The phone rang downstairs as she picked up the article on the Tachibana Sweet Shop. She heard Rei answer, and then Rei was calling her name. The phone call, it seemed, was for her, and she almost carelessly shoved the article at Rei in an effort to get her hands on the phone.

As soon as she heard the voice on the other end, she swore her heart skipped a beat. It was Kiriko! She'd called.

Suddenly, she wished Rei wasn't in the room.


	5. Chapter 5

"Hi, Kiriko," she said, feeling odd that she was talking to the woman in real life. On the house phone. With Rei watching. "This is Miku."

"I... it feels so much better to talk to you over the phone." Kiriko took a deep breath. "Here, instead of in that place."

"I know," Miku said. "It's quite different, isn't it?" She didn't know how to continue with Rei standing right there. "Hold on a minute. Rei, the folder on the Sweet Shop."

She handed Rei the folder. Rei took it, thumbing through the thin pages. "Is this the person you mentioned?"

"Yes." Miku glanced at Rei. "She actually owns this place, she and her fiance, Yuu, were kind enough to take me in when... things happened." 

"Does she know it's a curse?" Kiriko asked.

"No." Miku shook her head, even if the other woman couldn't see it. "I should, but...."

"It might help. It helped me. Just talking to you helps."

Miku blushed, a little. "Okay, I'll try that. Um, I just realized I don't have your phone number?"

"I'll give it to you. Is now a bad time to talk?"

"Maybe." She didn't want to confuse Rei quite yet.

"Okay." Kiriko was silent for a moment. "Here's my phone number...."

Miku wrote it down. "Thank you, I'll call you later - maybe with some news."

"Please, just keep me company so I feel like I have something to stay awake for."

"I will. I promise. Goodbye!"

"New friend?" Rei asked. The fragile smile was back.

"Kiriko is a... bit of a shut-in due to things that happened to her. We connected, and I gave her my phone number. I hope you don't mind."

Internally, she was thinking of how she could convince Rei that not only were the myths that Yuu had studied real, but that both of them were under a curse and she needed help in breaking it.

"I think it's good for you to have a friend," Rei said. "And I know you won't have her calling at all hours."

"No, Kiriko wouldn't do that," Miku agreed. She thought about how she should go about things - maybe go to bed before Rei, claiming tiredness. If not that, she'd have to break it to her in a few days, figuring out a plan with Yuu. "Do you need anything else, Rei? If not, I'll start putting together supper."

"I'm not very hungry," Rei said. "But thank you, Miku. You do so much for me...."

"You're welcome, Rei." She wished Rei could deal with things more, but she didn't mind. After all, she and Yuu had taken Miku in when they hadn't had to. "I might take a little bit longer nap if that's okay?"

"I might do that myself, before dinner." Rei nodded.

"Um...." She didn't know how to ask Rei to stay awake. "Okay."

"Miku, is something wrong?" Rei put down her equipment. Miku gave her credit for noticing her hesitation.

"It's nothing, Rei. I just... I have these dreams where you fall asleep and you don't wake up."

"I'll be fine, Miku." Rei gave her a slightly stronger smile. "I know that you went through some kind of trauma, but I'll be fine. I'm in good health."

"I know. It's just... for a while I was scared to lose you and Yuu, too." More Yuu than Rei, but still. And she still might lose Rei.

"I'll be fine." Rei took a cloth to her camera. "Take a nap, you'll feel better."

"I will." She headed upstairs. "But not for long. Wake me up if I sleep into suppertime."

It was hard for her to fall back asleep, but she did. "Reika," she said, as soon as the spirit showed up, "I have to talk to Yuu, fast."

Reika nodded. "I'll get him. Has something happened?"

"I got an idea," Miku said, "But I have to talk to him before Rei goes to bed tonight."

The guardian spirit nodded once more and disappeared. She popped in with Yuu a minute later.

"Miku? Are you okay?" Yuu asked. "We just talked - I haven't been able to talk to Kiriko."

"I'm going to convince her to talk to you," Miku said, "But we talked over the phone, and she got the idea to get Rei in on the research, I just need help convincing her that the curse isn't a legend." She wasn't one for run-on sentences, normally, but she was in a hurry.

"What are you thinking?" Yuu asked. She took a deep breath, even though she didn't really need to breathe in the dream. 

"We need a bizarre phrase, or something, that I can say to her in the morning."

"Hm. Or I can bring her here - I haven't before, because I didn't want to intrude on your dream."

"Is it even here when I'm not?" Miku asked.

"There are some people who use the big hall when you're in here," Reika said. "I haven't discouraged them. I discourage them from coming in here."

"Oh." Miku shook her head. "That's okay." They wouldn't think of it as a nightmare place as she did, and at least this was some kind of private space. "I don't mind."

"I'll bring her here, and we can talk when you both go to bed."

"I will do what I can to help," Reika vowed.


	6. Chapter 6

Miku went to bed excited for the first time since she'd ended up at the Manor. She and Rei had had a good dinner, and now she would get another person to help with the dream. She hadn't wanted Rei involved initially, but if Rei knew she at least wouldn't think Miku had gone crazy.

Or at least she hopefully wouldn't think so.

She knelt down in the dream version of Himuro Mansion, tending to her plants, and forced herself not to look up as she heard a door close. It registered after a moment that maybe it wasn't the right door when footsteps came from an unexpected direction and a figure in white and black settled down next to her. "Mafuyu," she breathed.

"Hi, Miku," he said. She looked up; her brother was smiling as always, as if he tried to cheer her up even when his own circumnstances were nothing to be happy about.

"Kirie wanted you to get out of the cavern for a while?" she asked.

"She feels guilty about me being there, so she asked if I'd find out what was happening with you." 

"Not much. Yuu's bringing Rei in. I didn't want to tell her about the curse, but it's going to get harder and harder to explain what I'm doing since I've got more than Kei involved with this now."

"I don't think I've ever met Rei." In fact, he'd had trouble remembering Rei's name, until Miku reminded him that Yuu and Rei together meant ghost.

Miku wished that Mafuyu had come at some other time so that she could really talk to him instead of getting the whole thing overwhelmed by their need to bring Rei in on the whole thing.

"Well, you'll meet her now," she said lightly. "I'm sure they'll be here soon."

"How have things been otherwise? Kirie wants to know if you're well."

Miku wanted to groan. While she tried not to be too upset at Kirie - after all, the ghost hadn't asked for Mafuyu to die for her - she still wasn't sure how she felt about her. "I'm eating better."

"She'll be happy to hear that." Mafuyu smiled more at that. "Are you going to go back to school?"

"I hope to, someday, when the curse is lifted." It was funny, she'd probably lose access to Mafuyu when the curse was limited, but she knew that if she didn't lose the curse, other peoples' loved ones would die, so she didn't feel too upset about not having access to him. 

"That's good." Mafuyu leaned forward. "Both of us would like to see you get back to school."

It seemed odd to have an old ghost worry about her schooling, but she wasn't going to complain. And Mafuyu worried anyway.

The door slid open at that point, bu Miku didn't look up. She saw that Mafuyu was looking up and trying to look as friendly as possible. Which wasn't hard.

"I've never been in here before," Rei was saying.

"It's because it's somebody's dream, and some of them are more private than others. Let me show you."

As the two of them came around, she looked over. She would have had to have been deaf to have missed their conversation, and it would have been odd if she had.

"Miku!" Rei looked over at her. "But why are you-"

"It's a long story, Rei." She turned and indicated her brother. "This is Mafuyu my brother."

"Oh, hello. Pleased to meet you." Rei bowed slightly, as if unsure of how to greet a ghost.

"Mafuyu and I have been friends for a long time," Yuu added. "I'm glad that you get to meet him here."

"And I'm glad I get to show you my garden," Miku said, shifting a little so that Rei could see it a little better.

"It's in a hole?" Rei asked. "I mean, Yuu and I came across this dry well, but there wasn't a garden growing out of it."

"One day I decided to start a garden, and... it just happened. I don't know what some of these plants are, but they make me happy." She took a vine-grown fruit off of its vine and handed it to Rei. She'd had to trim that plant recently as it had been trying to grow all over the place.

"It's tasty, but I don't think I've seen it before," Rei said, examining it. "Yuu?"

"I don't know it either. You've trimmed it back, I see."

Miku nodded. "I'm sorry it took so long to realize that I was blocking everyone out of this room," she said. "I guess I do tend to see it as my private area to be with Mafuyu."

"I'm not going to blame you for that," Rei's words were gentle; she was almost her old self for the moment.

If only she could blame herself less.

"Anyway, this is my area, so please admire my plants," Miku said.

"They're very beautiful, but I'm sure you want to talk to your brother," Rei said. "Yuu?"

"Miku, is it okay if I show her some of the other areas back here?"

"Sure," Miku said, pointing an arm in the direction of the semi-hidden door. "I'll see you soon, both of you."


End file.
